Day 1 of the gardening year

I woke early but as #1 son had the laptop I just had to roll over and doze through the ' Today' programme.

I was up a while before the boy. He went off to watch the rugby at his cousin's. I'm not expecting to see him again anytime soon. I did speak to #1 daughter in law, all alone in KL.

Went shopping as the plan is to have a Mother's Day meal tomorrow before the boy returns to Chilwell. Hopefully we'll have #2 son too but he is proving elusive. I went out for one or two things to the wonderful shops down the road. Queued at Eddie's for swordfish, then fruit and veg from Fruit Connection then via Scotmid for flowers I ended up at Michael Field for venison and steak and a great discussion about French wine including Picpoul de Pinet, which I was tasting on Thursday.

Then to the garden. The oft blipped rose is still in bud but the downside of a mild winter is that the weeds have proliferated and the ground is covered by something green and unwanted, luckily shallow rooted.

So I have planted in my woodland garden under the sycamore. As it's the bit I can see from the kitchen sink I want to make it colourful. Roses, primroses, anemone, fuchsia, forsythia, transplanted bluebells and snowdrops and something with pink pea like flowers. I also pulled up weeds and nettles and planted grass seed on the bare bits. Oh, and I planted 15 tatties, 5 early and 10 second early.

Now it's me and Molly and a blip of a daffodil I planted last autumn. It may be St Patrick's Day but here's a daffodil for the victorious Welsh. E will be happy!